Idylls of the King
By
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Last Tournament

Then Tristram, ever dallying with her hand,'May God be with thee, sweet, when old and gray,And past desire!' a saying that angered her.'"May God be with thee, sweet, when thou art old,And sweet no more to me!" I need Him now.For when had Lancelot uttered aught so grossEven to the swineherd's malkin in the mast?The greater man, the greater courtesy.Far other was the Tristram, Arthur's knight!But thou, through ever harrying thy wild beasts — Save that to touch a harp, tilt with a lanceBecomes thee well — art grown wild beast thyself.How darest thou, if lover, push me evenIn fancy from thy side, and set me farIn the gray distance, half a life away,Her to be loved no more? Unsay it, unswear!Flatter me rather, seeing me so weak,Broken with Mark and hate and solitude,Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suckLies like sweet wines: lie to me: I believe.Will ye not lie? not swear, as there ye kneel,And solemnly as when ye sware to him,The man of men, our King — My God, the powerWas once in vows when men believed the King!They lied not then, who sware, and through their vowsThe King prevailing made his realm: — I say,Swear to me thou wilt love me even when old,Gray-haired, and past desire, and in despair.'

Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down,'Vows! did you keep the vow you made to MarkMore than I mine? Lied, say ye? Nay, but learnt,The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself — My knighthood taught me this — ay, being snapt — We run more counter to the soul thereofThan had we never sworn. I swear no more.I swore to the great King, and am forsworn.For once — even to the height — I honoured him."Man, is he man at all?" methought, when firstI rode from our rough Lyonnesse, and beheldThat victor of the Pagan throned in hall — His hair, a sun that rayed from off a browLike hillsnow high in heaven, the steel-blue eyes,The golden beard that clothed his lips with light — Moreover, that weird legend of his birth,With Merlin's mystic babble about his endAmazed me; then, his foot was on a stoolShaped as a dragon; he seemed to me no man,But Michael trampling Satan; so I sware,Being amazed: but this went by — The vows!O ay — the wholesome madness of an hour — They served their use, their time; for every knightBelieved himself a greater than himself,And every follower eyed him as a God;Till he, being lifted up beyond himself,Did mightier deeds than elsewise he had done,And so the realm was made; but then their vows — First mainly through that sullying of our Queen — Began to gall the knighthood, asking whenceHad Arthur right to bind them to himself?Dropt down from heaven? washed up from out the deep?They failed to trace him through the flesh and bloodOf our old kings: whence then? a doubtful lordTo bind them by inviolable vows,Which flesh and blood perforce would violate:For feel this arm of mine — the tide withinRed with free chase and heather-scented air,Pulsing full man; can Arthur make me pureAs any maiden child? lock up my tongueFrom uttering freely what I freely hear?Bind me to one? The wide world laughs at it.And worldling of the world am I, and knowThe ptarmigan that whitens ere his hourWoos his own end; we are not angels hereNor shall be: vows — I am woodman of the woods,And hear the garnet-headed yaffingaleMock them: my soul, we love but while we may;And therefore is my love so large for thee,Seeing it is not bounded save by love.'

Here ending, he moved toward her, and she said,'Good: an I turned away my love for theeTo some one thrice as courteous as thyself — For courtesy wins woman all as wellAs valour may, but he that closes bothIs perfect, he is Lancelot — taller indeed,Rosier and comelier, thou — but say I lovedThis knightliest of all knights, and cast thee backThine own small saw, "We love but while we may,"Well then, what answer?'

He that while she spake,Mindful of what he brought to adorn her with,The jewels, had let one finger lightly touchThe warm white apple of her throat, replied,'Press this a little closer, sweet, until — Come, I am hungered and half-angered — meat,Wine, wine — and I will love thee to the death,And out beyond into the dream to come.'

So then, when both were brought to full accord,She rose, and set before him all he willed;And after these had comforted the bloodWith meats and wines, and satiated their hearts — Now talking of their woodland paradise,The deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns;Now mocking at the much ungainliness,And craven shifts, and long crane legs of Mark — Then Tristram laughing caught the harp, and sang:

'Ay, ay, O ay — the winds that bend the brier!A star in heaven, a star within the mere!Ay, ay, O ay — a star was my desire,And one was far apart, and one was near:Ay, ay, O ay — the winds that bow the grass!And one was water and one star was fire,And one will ever shine and one will pass.Ay, ay, O ay — the winds that move the mere.'

Then in the light's last glimmer Tristram showedAnd swung the ruby carcanet. She cried,'The collar of some Order, which our KingHath newly founded, all for thee, my soul,For thee, to yield thee grace beyond thy peers.'

'Not so, my Queen,' he said, 'but the red fruitGrown on a magic oak-tree in mid-heaven,And won by Tristram as a tourney-prize,And hither brought by Tristram for his lastLove-offering and peace-offering unto thee.'

He spoke, he turned, then, flinging round her neck,Claspt it, and cried, 'Thine Order, O my Queen!'But, while he bowed to kiss the jewelled throat,Out of the dark, just as the lips had touched,Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek — 'Mark's way,' said Mark, and clove him through the brain.

That night came Arthur home, and while he climbed,All in a death-dumb autumn-dripping gloom,The stairway to the hall, and looked and sawThe great Queen's bower was dark, — about his feetA voice clung sobbing till he questioned it,'What art thou?' and the voice about his feetSent up an answer, sobbing, 'I am thy fool,And I shall never make thee smile again.'